


Lost

by OrionMoka



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Humor, Soulmates, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 04:26:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18909523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionMoka/pseuds/OrionMoka
Summary: Anything you lose, misplace, set down or forget about, reappears with or near your soulmate. It happens to everyone, and of course, the same happens in return, so odd things, little knick knacks, show up around you as well. This is called a warp.





	Lost

oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo

When nothing appears around her son for the first years of his life, Ayira Strife wonders what kind of childhood Cloud's soulmate is having. Children, no matter their status, are prone to losing things at a young age. Babies throw things, and parents can't keep watch  _ all _ the time, so inevitably cereal rolls under the sofa, or toys are dropped in the park, out of sight and forgotten long enough for it to  _ warp, _ as it's been called. Things you lose, things your soulmate has lost, they  _ warp.  _

So when nothing shows up, she finds it unsettling. It means Cloud's soulmate is either old enough and controlled enough to never lose  _ anything, _ young enough to not be born yet, or alive but has nothing to lose. Ayira Strife doesn't like it.

She doesn't like it even more, when at age four, Cloud walks out of his bedroom with surgical tools in his hands. Real, sanitised steel scalpels and forceps. His soulmate is either  _ much _ older, or someone is letting their child play with dangerous things.

Cloud doesn't understand yet, but doesn't protest when she shows him the  _ Warp Box _ under his bed, lifting the edge of his mattress to reveal the spacious cedar containment beneath it. It's the full size of his mattress, half a meter deep. They put the surgical instruments inside on a soft cloth, and leave them there. She tells him anything else that shows up, he should put inside. She  _ doesn't  _ tell him that from then on, she checks the box while he played outside, noting with concern each time a new scalpel or syringe showed up.

When he walks out of his room one morning, dragging a sword behind him, she drops the plate she's cleaning and moves to help him get it on the table, marveling at who could possibly lift such a thing. It's over two meters long, so polished you can see your reflection, and sharper than any blade or knife in the whole town. 

This one, she tells him, has to go away. He's just five years old, doesn't understand where it came from to begin with, so he doesn't argue. Just nods, and goes out to grab the morning papers while Ayira Strife does the only thing she can think of, and finds a long box. The blade, beautiful as it is, gets sent to SHINRAs headquarters in Midgar with a note of how she came about it.

Two weeks later, she receives a formal thank you from a Wutaian Turk on her doorstep who adamantly refuses to tell her who the blade belongs to, or why presumably a child is running around with it or being allowed to play with all the surgical blades she hands him from under Cloud's bed. The Turk, Tseng, apologises on behalf of the company, declares each question as confidential information, and asks that should the sword show up again, she repeat her actions in sending it to Midgar. He even gives her three hundred SHINRA PRIORITY postage stamps in the event it happens again, so she won't have to pay shipping. She sincerely hopes she won’t have to use all three hundred.

oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo

Aleczandar Hojo had never cared much for the idea of soulmates. He didn't begrudge them, acknowledged their existence, even, but he'd never put any thought to finding his. He was, honestly, a little disappointed that Sephiroth had a soulmate. He could only be thankful the child was clearly abnormal. Not to the degree his prize specimen was, of course, but walking into the labs one morning to find the silver haired seven year old playing with a baby Nibel wolf was quite enlightening.

Until now, there had been typical items, a piece of cereal here, an infant sock there. A handheld mirror with dried slobber on one edge. He'd analysed the genetic sample left behind and begun a file, but had nothing to compare it to. There were no familial matches in the SHINRA database.

How a  _ child _ managed to  _ lose _ a  _ wild Nibel wolf _ pup was beyond him though. He silently thanked the Northern soulmate for providing a decent specimen for Sephiroth to tame and train. He wasn't let out of the labs much,  _ yet,  _ and it gave him something to do.

When Sephiroth  _ was _ finally let out, and the SOLDIER program kicked off, he nearly had an aneurysm when the nine year old admitted, sheepishly, he'd lost his personally selected seven foot monstrosity of a katana. If the boy's soulmate could lose a wolf cub of the most ferocious known species, he shouldn't have been surprised that Sephiroth had managed to lose the blade.

He  _ was _ surprised, after two weeks, when the Turks delivered a long, thin box to the labs. The return address was simply  _ NIBELHEIM. _

oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo

As they got older, the children of Nibelheim came to recognise that Cloud was weird. Not only that, but Cloud’s soulmate also  _ had _ to be weird. By the time he was eight, the long sword had shown up more than fifty times. They would know, of course, because they’d watch Cloud drag a long, narrow cardboard box to the post office, and they’d made a point of counting. After all, who in their right minds kept  _ losing _ a sword longer than the adults were tall.

Despite his disparity, however, Cloud’s uniqueness had made him inordinately popular with girls. They’d shove the boys off and keep them from mocking or teasing the blond, threatening to tell Cloud they actually thought he was cool. Boys never said it to his face, they were too…  _ male. _ But the girls were always in good moods around him.

Cloud was small for his age, and pretty. He was  _ really _ attractive, more than some of the girls in town. If Cloud had been a girl, the other boys would be all over him. In a different way then they were now, of course. He also walked around with a black tank top and cargo pants even in the dead of winter and was never cold. He said it had something to do with the glowing green pendant he kept on a chain around his neck. He’d let some of them feel it once, and it really was warm.

The chain also had a black metal tag on it, with a few things engraved into it. One was a date, another was an address, and the last was just a capital S. The address, which Tifa had dragged him into her house towards the computer to look up, was the same SHINRA headquarters address the sword was always returned to.

Mostly, Tifa thought as she knocked on the Strife door once more, Cloud’s popularity had to do with the fancy conditioner he kept giving away. It made hair soft, smooth, shiny, and luscious. She’d managed to look the brand up on her papa’s computer, and it was  _ really _ expensive stuff. Whoever Cloud’s soulmate was, she must be a high maintenance rich bitch.

She lamented once again that it wasn’t her, not that she was complaining. Except her own soulmate clearly had  _ inexpensive _ tastes and lost only the most useless, boring stuff.

oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo

The two boys from Banora had long since discovered who they were to each other, what with copies of Loveless filling Angeal’s bedroom because every time Genesis lost his, his parents bought him a new one to lose, and all sorts of potted plants and dirty gardening gloves popping up in Gen’s pristine room with his then best friend’s initials on them.

By the time Angeal and Genesis met Sephiroth, they were all fourteen. He was already First Class and training with the generals. He knew what a soulmate was, what it meant, but to their disappointment he’d never found his. Or rather, never been allowed time to hunt his down, because he knew they were in NIbelheim. It was the return address on each box masamune got returned in. Unfortunately, the town was small enough no one bothered putting their individual house on return addresses. If something was sent to Nibelheim, they were expecting it and already knew who it was meant for. 

If something unexpected was delivered, well, Angeal and Genesis knew what small towns could be like. It was probably used as fire starters.

It wasn’t just the sword returns, though. Sephiroth had happily lead them to his apartment after training one evening, when they asked to see his warps. Opening the door to arms full of Nibel Wolf was the first time they wondered if his soulmate might be as strange as he was.

Aside from Fenrir, named after an old Nibel god, they were lead into a room  _ full _ of warps. It was downright impressive how much the man’s soulmate had managed to lose, and not just for the sheer quantity, but the items themselves. Shelves of unique rocks, of naturalised mako  _ crystals.  _ A glass display case of  _ raw materia, _ which Genesis immediately fawned over. Strings upon strings of monster teeth and claws hanging against one wall. A trio of hollowed out, dyed and decorated eggs that could only be dragon eggs based on the size.

Above all, they were impressed by a central table case with soft lighting illuminating the items within, personal affairs likely lost without a thought but items an individual requires in daily life. A pair of simple black, boxy glasses, a stretched out hair tie, a rubber bath chocobo. A wide-tooth bone comb, a worn down black sneaker, a pair of amazingly soft animal skin gloves dyed a dark turquoise, a  _ zipper pull. _ Little things that were, excluding the glasses, easily replaced but commonly missed.

Sephiroth, Genesis declared with his usual dramatic flair, was undoubtedly a hopeless romantic.

oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo~oOo

Tseng hadn’t been sure why the sword took so long to return this time. It usually shows up within a week of Sephiroth happily announcing he’s lost it again. Most others wouldn’t be able to tell the teen was happy about it, but as a Turk he is trained to see those carefully hidden micro expressions that give the SOLDIER away. This includes the small, wistful smile ever present on Sephiroth’s face when he’s thinking about his soulmate.

He looked forward to seeing whatever expression Sephiroth displayed, then, upon learning what it came back with this time. Or rather  _ who, _ he thinks as he looks at Cloud Strife through the one way mirror in an observation room.


End file.
